The Summer of Naked Swim Parties (26 page)

“Oh shit!” he said. “Jamie, you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“How long you been there?” Brett asked.

“Don’t know. Can you take me home?”

”Fucking Tammy will kill me if I leave her here alone and take you home,” Brett said.

“I’ll take her,” Jimmy said. “Give me your keys.” Jimmy rotated his head from front to side, checking on Jamie, who sat beside him in the cab of the truck.

“Let me know if you’re going to be sick,” he said. “I’ll pull over right away.”

Jamie nodded and tried to smile.

When they got to the house, Jimmy parked in the driveway, got out, ran around to Jamie’s door, and hefted her up, like a groom carrying his bride. He staggered to the front 
door and tried to open it while still holding Jamie in his arms.

“Do you have a key?” Jimmy asked. He was panting from the effort of carrying Jamie.

“My sister musta locked it before she went to sleep even though she knows I don’t have a key.” Jamie tumbled out of Jimmy’s arms and landed standing up, leaning into him for support. “Let’s go to the backyard.” Jimmy looped his arm around Jamie’s back and helped her to the backyard. The glass doors to the kitchen were locked too. Jamie didn’t mention the garage door, or the door in her father’s study, or the glass doors in the dining room—she knew they’d all be locked; it was Renee’s way of punishing Jamie for going to a party that she would never have been invited to.

“I’ll sleep in the poolroom,” Jamie said. “It’s safe enough.” Jimmy followed Jamie around the yard, to the door that lead to the poolroom. The door was unlocked. Jamie stumbled in and sat on the floor, her back against the wall. Jimmy tried the door that went from the poolroom into the house; it was locked.

“Where are you gonna sleep?” Jimmy found the switch and turned on the lights.

“Floor,” Jamie said.

“Here.” Jimmy yanked the life jackets off their hangers and made a nest on the floor for Jamie.

Jamie crawled across the ground and curled up with her knees pulled toward her chest.

“Blankets,” Jimmy said, as he covered Jamie with several towels so that just her face popped out.

“You gonna be okay in here?” he asked.

“Yeah, no problem.” Jamie was too drunk to be afraid of 
all the things that she would normally imagine lurking in wait for her. She was aware of her current lack of fear and made a note to herself to consider regular drinking as a cure for her anxieties.

“I’ll tell Debbie to call you in the morning to make sure you’re okay. Okay?”

Jamie knew Debbie wouldn’t call in the morning, but it felt wrong to let Jimmy in on that fact. “Thanks,” she moaned. Before Jimmy had left the room, Jamie fell (not slowly, the way a leaf falls, but quickly, the way an avalanche falls) into a deep sleep.

Although Allen and Betty took pride in the fact that their children weren’t monitored or watched like prisoners, they couldn’t help but notice Jamie’s presence on the family room couch, day after day, eating peanut butter cups and watching TV. Allen decided that Jamie was, indeed, uncharacteristically depressed and that the family should go to therapy together, for who knew what scars the death of Lacey had left behind in each of them. Betty felt that the exorcism and baptism were all she needed, but for the sake of her near-motionless daughter, she agreed to go. Renee claimed that she herself was carrying scars that predated the death of Lacey, scars acquired simply by being in the family. Family therapy would not be right for her, she said, as she needed to be healed from them and not with them. In an unusual act of paternity, Allen insisted that every member of the family be present for therapy. Dorey, his shrink in Los Angeles, connected them with someone whom she called a “masterful” therapist—a session with this guy, Dorey claimed, should not be passed up. If it didn’t work out, Allen told the family, his acupuncturist would give them the group rate on acupuncture for everyone.

* * *

Renee sat in the middle of the backseat of the Volvo, one hand on the edge of Allen’s seat and one on the edge of Betty’s. Jamie leaned against the window, watching people in the cars that passed and wondering how many other people on the freeway were going to family therapy. A long, velvet-red car cruised along side them. A bald man was driving with a helmet-haired woman beside him. They were as still as the seat itself, both staring straight ahead as if they’d been hypnotized. Nothing, not even a gum wrapper, was in the backseat; and a box of tissue, with one sheet popped up like a burgee, sat on the red ledge behind the backseat. Jamie wondered what it would be like to ride in a car that clean, that quiet, to have a fresh tissue right there if you needed it, to have a life that orderly and organized.

The people in the clean car would never have dead babies floating in their pool; they would never have boyfriends who broke up with them with the quick efficiency of canceling a dental appointment. They would never confuse sex in a beach cave with love. They wouldn’t even have sisters who hated them. No, tidy people like that probably continued the same tender friendships with their sisters from childhood through puberty and into adulthood.

“I don’t see why I have to go,” Renee said. “Jamie’s the one who’s depressed.”

“I’m not depressed,” Jamie said. “I’ve never been depressed in my life!”

“No, you’re not depressed,” Renee said, “you’re perfectly happy to sit home eating Cap’n Crunch and watching Match Game every single day. I mean, you don’t even read anymore!”

“Jamie’s problems are everyone’s problems,” Betty said.

“They’re not my problems,” Renee said. “I don’t watch Match Game every day.”

“Shut up.” Jamie stared at the floor, at the balled silver gum wrapper, the hair-laden lint that had collected on the edges of the floor mat, and the three dried french fries from when Allen had snuck the girls out to McDonald’s the previous winter. Jamie had hardly read all summer; when Flip had been her boyfriend she hadn’t had time to read. And now that she had time she couldn’t find any books that interested her—nothing seemed as scintillating as game shows.

But her problem was not that she watched Match Game, Jamie thought; it was that she had no one to watch Match Game with.

“Does it have to be group therapy?” Renee asked. “What if someone I know from school is there? What if I know one of the kids in one of the families?”

“If they’re there too,” Allen said, “you’ll have nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“We could skip it and go to Family Night at Tammy’s church,” Jamie said. “It starts at the same time as this.”

“Yeah, look how much good Family Night does Tammy—
she’s not a nasty, skinny, blond bitch, is she?” Renee said.

“No need for sarcasm,” Betty said.

“Actually,” Renee said, “maybe Family Night would be good. Jamie could just confess or something and not drag all of us into this.”

“I’d rather eat dog shit then go to Family Night at Tammy’s church,” Betty said.

“No need for sarcasm, Mom,” Renee said.

“I’m not being sarcastic. I wouldn’t go near her family’s church.”

“How can you say that?” Allen had a slicing edge in 
his voice. “You, the woman who had our child baptized in the swimming pool, would rather eat dog shit than go to a church?!”

“Don’t start,” Betty said.

Renee refused to get out of the car when they pulled up at the therapist’s house. Jamie thought it was a boring-looking square house in a neighborhood of similar boring houses. This neighborhood had wide streets; clean, white sidewalks; tidy, trim lawns; small, shadeless trees; and no people outside.

Jamie followed Betty and Allen to the front door. Just as Allen was ringing the bell Renee ran out of the car and joined her family. A man with a square, rubbery face answered the door. He was wearing a shiny tight shirt unbuttoned to reveal a furry nest of brown hair; he reminded Jamie of TV stars.

“You must be Allen and Betty,” he said, and he hugged Betty first, then Allen.

“Are we late?” Allen asked.

“Just a few minutes,” the man said.

“These are the girls,” Allen said.

“Which one is Jamie?” the therapist asked.

“Her,” Jamie said, pointing to Renee.

“She’s Jamie,” Allen said, pointing at Jamie. “But we’re all in this together. It’s not just Jamie I’m worried about.”

“Of course,” the therapist said, and he leaned down and hugged Jamie. Jamie could smell cologne on his neck and minty toothpaste, which she imagined was caulked in the cracks of his long, yellow teeth. There was something about those teeth that made Jamie want to run from him. Renee must have felt similarly repulsed for when the therapist reached toward her for a hug, she stepped behind Allen and stuck her hand out to be shaken.

“Come meet the group,” the therapist said, taking Renee’s hand and leading her, and the rest of family, into the house, then down three steps into the sunken living room, where a small crowd was seated, waiting. There were three couches and four chairs arranged in a circle. The couches were orange, flat, with buttons on the seats and backs. The chairs were green, nubby, with bent iron triangles for legs.

“Grown-ups on couches and chairs,” the therapist said, 
“and children on the floor.”

Betty and Allen sat in the only open spot, on a couch where another couple already sat. Renee and Jamie sat in front of their parents, their legs crossed and touching at the knee. Jamie scanned the circle to check out the other kids.

There were six girls and two boys. One of the girls looked high-school-aged; she wore bright red lipstick, mascara, and a blouse that hung open when she leaned forward on her crossed legs, revealing her woman-sized breasts. The rest of the kids were smaller, younger than Jamie. One boy was black. This was remarkable for two reasons: (1) There were no black parents in the group. (2) There were no black people (that Jamie had ever met) in Santa Barbara. Other than her years-long pen pal from when she went to sleep-away camp near Los Angeles, the only black people Jamie knew were on television: Bill Cosby, Flip Wilson, Huggy Bear from Starsky and Hutch, and Rodney Allen Rippy, who sang in the commercial for Jack in the Box.

“Let’s start by going around the room and stating our names,” the therapist said, “so that Betty and Allen and their kids can get to know us. You all know that I’m Dick.” Jamie’s lips pursed as she stifled a laugh. She nudged her sister with her elbow, but Renee ignored her.

Dick put his hand on the knee of the woman sitting 
beside him. She was fat but dollish—like a bloated country girl from Petticoat Junction.

“I’m Karen,” she said. “I’m Dick’s wife.” There were two women sitting behind the black boy.

One had long, tumbling brown hair. The other had a short, blond pixie cut. The blond one put her hands on the black boy’s shoulders as if she were trying to brace herself before speaking.

“I’m Dodie. I’m the wife of Sela and mother of Tugboat.” She squeezed Tugboat’s shoulders when she said his name.

“I’m Sela,” the dark-haired one said, “wife of Dodie and mother of Tugboat.”

Tugboat didn’t say anything; he was drawing something with his finger in the golden shag rug.

In the middle of the introductions, a waifish girl—about the size of an eight-year-old—stood, turned toward her mother, and raised her mother’s T-shirt. The mother watched Dick and didn’t seem to notice as her daughter lifted one of her rubbery breasts and shoved it into her mouth. Jamie had seen babies nurse before, but she had never seen someone so large doing it. The mother caught Jamie staring; she smiled and winked. Jamie looked away quickly, scratching her eye, as if that, somehow, would lead the woman to believe that Jamie hadn’t really been looking at her overgrown suckling.

“Renee, Jamie,” Dick said, “do you have any questions before we begin?”

Jamie wanted to ask why Tugboat was named Tugboat, why the girl was nursing, if Sela and Dodie were really married, how old the girl with the lipstick was, and why anyone named Dick wouldn’t just go by Richard or Rich or Rick, even. But she shrugged her shoulders and said nothing.

“Jamie,” Dick said, “maybe you can start by telling everyone what you’ve been doing when you’re home alone all day and how you feel about what you’ve been doing.”

“Uh . . . ,” Jamie swallowed hard. “I’ll pass for now.”

“You don’t need to be ashamed,” Dick said.

“No thanks,” Jamie said.

Sela said, “Everything is okay here, Jamie. There is nothing you can’t tell us. Tugboat told us about his exploration with masturbation and he discovered that what he was doing was fine. That we’re all human and everyone masturbates.”

“I haven’t been masturbating!” Jamie’s face flared red as she laughed. No one laughed with her, not even her own family.

“We’ll move on to someone else,” Dick said. “But Jamie, I’d like you to prepare yourself to share what you’ve been doing with the group. The only way for you to heal is for you to open yourself up.”

“Okay.” Jamie forced herself to smile away from the direction of Tugboat. She couldn’t bear to look into his face now that his mother had told the group he was masturbating. Was he blushing, she wondered, or had he maintained his focus on the shag rug? Jamie rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and begged the Chumash celestial gods not to let her mother tell the group about her diaphragm or the fact that her breasts came in before Renee’s or any other information that Jamie felt should remain in the confines of her own body and mind.

While people took turns “sharing their feelings” Jamie looked around the room and examined faces, skin, hair, and 
pore sizes. She was so encased in her head that she didn’t hear what anyone said until a man with a handlebar mus-tache and yellow slacks stood up and whined in a girlish timbre that he felt like ripping open his body with a Phillips head screwdriver, tearing out his heart, and hurling it against his wife’s sickly face. Dick told the man, Stan, to get the tennis racket, go to the guest room, and return when he had diffused his anger.

“I didn’t mean Phillips head,” Stan said, as he picked up the racket that had been leaning against a wall, “I meant a standard screwdriver, the one with a tip like a flat tongue.”